family is planning on taking a trip to vail this year but as the planner i have some questions for those of you that live out there. We are looking at staying at the vail village inn. Does anybody know anything about this place? Is it pretty nice? Also my parents probably wont be skiing alot and we were planning on doing vail because of the shops and restaurants being so close to the actual ski resort. Is this pretty true? If we stay in vail village will there be plenty of shops and restaurants for them to check out? Any movie theaters? Thanks for the help!

Also any info on how their park will be around Christmas would be awesome!

Ha! Vail Village is in the middle of it all. Tons of restaurants, shops, and the like. It is geared for the touron. So yeah, there will be plenty to do there. You shouldn't even need a vehicle if you are staying in Vail Village . It'll be a short walk to the lifts at worst staying in the village.

No idea about the park. I'm sure Vail will have one. Regardless it should be at or near full operations by that time.

It's on the lions head side. Regardless, everything is close by in the villages(lions head, vail village and golden peak) and the bus system is free. There is a smaller park on the lions head side called Bwana. also a really beginner park called pride park.

Last year golden peak had a great variety of rails and boxes, better than brecks, they lacked in jumps though.... I work with the park managers wife and have gotten to know him and my son rides on vails full-time team this year so I've been in some of the meetings about their park build this year as well as talked to their park manager about it. The park on golden peak side should be incredible and open by then. There will he a 18' and 22' pipe. The 22 is planned to be the biggest in the world this year, something like 650' long. There should be only 2 jump lines in golden peak this year... Medium and large ranging from 25-75' sizes. They also plan a mini BX coarse where the smaller jump line and baby pipe was last year. There should end up being a 4 jump smaller line in bwana up to 30' and a really small beginner jump line there also. All of the bwana features are "ride on". Most of golden peaks are not ride on.

BA is kinda right about SPT, they will help in design and initial setup of the pipe and park but the crew here will be doing their own building. The guys at SPT and the management here are pretty close and worked together prior to SPT.

So far the plan is to have the park open by the last week of november and all of the new snow canons are already in place to make the alpine race course, parks and pipe now. Just waiting for the right temps in a week or so.

As for movies, buy tickets early, they sale out that time of year. Cinebestro is what its called in vail village at the solaris. Nicest theatre I have been too, not the biggest though. If you wanna eat at restaurants you should make reservations.... They book up fast. Montauk grill, bart and yetis and billys in lionshead are good nice places. Old forge and blue moose pizza are great. Snowboard shop to go to is one track mind, they are awesome people.

Restaurants in vail village that are good are Lancelot and sweet basil. The movie theatre serves excellent food also......

Our usually dinning place is garfinkles in lions head right a the base of the gondola. Best deck around and decent prices. Bully ranch in vail village is awesome for steaks and burgers.

thanks so much for the info guys. Sounds like they are really steping up their park game. I went to Breckenridge last year. How do the resorts differ? Any preference? Im more of a rail guy than a jump guy, so you think vail will be fine?
Also is beaver creek worth taking a look at for a day or should we just ride vail all three days?

Beaver Creek > Vail all day every day any day. I hate going to Vail. Go up traverse, ride down, ride up traverse ride down, ride up traverse get to where you want ride down, realize you have 1 hour till the lifts close start the monster traverse back.

Beaver Creek > Vail all day every day any day. I hate going to Vail. Go up traverse, ride down, ride up traverse ride down, ride up traverse get to where you want ride down, realize you have 1 hour till the lifts close start the monster traverse back.

Sounds like WinterPark, especially when you don't know it, I've always imagined Vail as a bigger Disneyier version (haven't gone west of Copper yet on i70. to ride that is).

If you like sushi, Yama is in the village, chef/owner Ted is a cool cat.

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No WinterPark is just a shit hole that should burn. Vail is fun if you know where to go but this poor guy that's how his day will best be summed up. Plus everyone thinks Vail is this big fucking epic place, BC fucking kills it any day of the week.